A true response would take way longer than the time they have and be much more personal than they wanted to know. The true answer is that most of the time it is great. It finally feels normal and I really like my classes and professors. But 15% of the time it straight up sucks. But no one wants to hear that college sucks. And if you are an optimist(like me) or a mathematician( not like me) my off-handed response of “really good” is an accurate average of my time away at school.

It’s widely said that a lot of a person’s personal growth and development happens during their college years. I don’t disagree. In my four months up at school, I know I have grown as an individual immensely. Just like those growing pains and growth spurts that you had as a kid, but instead these are emotional growth spurts, both of which sometimes hurt a lot.

People also say “Oh you will make lifelong friends in college.” Or my favorite, “The friends you make now will be your bridesmaids later!” No one tells you that for a while you will feel like you have fake friends and half friends. No one tells you that if you go to a place where you don’t know a soul, that sometimes it gets lonely. They never say, “You will start to wonder if you smell funny before you actually feel as though you have a couple solid friends.”

I think this provides many people with a false expectation for what college will be like. For example, fireworks will not go off in the background when you first meet your roommate and you will not be instant best friends. I know that I was not at all aware of the sub-clauses in those general comments everyone makes about college. I went into college thinking I would totally have it all together by day 10. Be involved, check. Make friends, check. Ace your classes, check. Grow, check. And by grow I do not mean in your waistline from the freshman 15, just to clarify.

Reality check: man was I mistaken. I never realized how much growing hurt. Being away from everyone I knew for close to 70 days, when I can’t think of a single time that I had spent without the presence of a familiar face before going to college, it hurt. I missed dinner with my family, doing homework and hearing my parents talk as they were preparing dinner, sharing a room with my sister, good morning hugs from my mom, I missed all of home. I missed the community of my small group, as I doubted that there was actually a single other Christian on the entire campus. I craved having someone with whom a look could be interpreted to speak 1000 words.

In the midst of this pain though, God always appeared. When I needed to meet another Christian on campus just to be reassured that they actually existed, in a totally random moment, I sat down next to one in a lecture. When it turned out that my dad had to fight a fire and couldn’t come to visit, two of my church friends from home to plan a trip to come visit. When I missed the companionship of my home friends, there was a friend waiting for me – I just needed to open my eyes and look around. God was always there in the pain of growing, and with his help I have grown with leaps and bounds.

I was also vastly unprepared for just exactly how long it would take to feel like I had really good friends. Even though I knew I was going somewhere where I wouldn’t know a soul, I thought, “It’s okay. I have already done this once before in high school when I went back to public school after homeschooling” what I failed to realize is that in high school I already knew some people. And they knew some people. So their friends became mutual friends and my friend circle expanded. In college it’s different. There is only one of me. I can only meet so many people and I can only spend quality getting to know you time with an even smaller number of people. I constantly have to remind myself to have grace with myself. Making friends takes a long time. Making best friends, let alone bridesmaid worthy friends, takes even longer. And in that long time, sometimes it gets a little lonely. But it’s okay. Everyone feels like that.

Give yourself grace, is what I have to keep reminding myself. Do you even remember how you made your last best friend? I know I can’t. Actually other than being nice, how does one make friends? I feel like it just happens naturally. Is there a point in time that marks the transition from friends to good friends to best friends? I think it all just takes time. It takes time to create the shared memories and inside jokes that come with a great friendship. It’s okay, friends will come with time. Hang in there.

I wrote this after first semester, and hesitated to put it up because it seemed really pessimistic, and that wasn’t what I wanted to portray-I knew it would get better, it was just slow going. Looking back on what I wrote after a full year under my belt, I still agree with what I was feeling, but I know it also gets better. Second semester I found my people-friends I knew were friends. I joined a sorority (though I never dreamed that I would), track season started, I found a home church, a bible study, and I became better friends with the people whom I had met during first semester. I knew how to juggle school, laundry, feeding myself, and having a social life way better. After two months of summer, though I am loving home, I miss my friends at school so much I almost wish school would start already just so I could see all my friends again. Wholeheartedly, I can say that school is great and I am really enjoying it.

Jumping for joy because life is good, school is over, and its finally summer.

In conclusion, a note to all the incoming college freshman-have grace with yourself. Realize its a big adjustment, and set your expectations accordingly. Have fun, and know that everything gets better after first semester. And a note to everyone who says, “College is the best time of your life!”-be careful, you might be creating false expectations in a nervous freshman’s mind. You might not remember the trials of the first couple weeks, because the good times have washed out all of those memories, but more than likely they were there.

In the past one and a half years, I have received right around 36.4 pounds of college mail. 36.4 pounds!!!! Makes me wonder how many trees were murdered in the hopeful, but probably highly unsuccessful, quest to find applicants.

November came and the first round of applications were due. I had been writing essays all summer, but the date still crept up on me a little. Never the less, I got them all in on time, and began waiting. I have never been so excited to receive mail in my life. Eagerly, after about two weeks, every day, after practice, before setting foot inside, I would peer nervously into the mailbox, hoping that there was a big fat letter in there for me. Then one day, two big, fat, official looking acceptance letters came. It was like Christmas had come a couple of weeks early. I was beyond excited! I knew for sure that I had somewhere to go next year. What a relief.

December and January were filled with round two of applications, the holidays, and family. A couple more acceptance letters came in, and I was excited to see how my hard work was paying off. In late January, my family took a trip to visit Baylor and Vanderbilt. We all fell in love with Vanderbilt. My sister said,” Might as well buy my sweatshirt now, cause this is where you are going.” She made a bet with me before the trip, that for some reason I don’t recall making, but the bet said that if she called the school I ended up attending, I would have to buy her a sweatshirt. The school and the trip were perfect. Well, except for the fact that it was 17 degrees the entire time we were there. (Side note: I have never been so thankful for the humidity and 60 degree weather that we had when we got back home). I was so excited to have found my number one school.

February brought more waiting, scholarship essays, more thinking, and a trip to University of Denver with my dad. Denver was amazing. My dad and I had a great time touring the campus and exploring the area around Denver. It was such a nice opportunity to be able to go on a daddy daughter trip. We were both impressed with the program that DU had, and especially a selective leadership program in which, if admitted, you live and take classes on leadership with a group of 65 other students, and in the end graduate with a minor in Leadership Studies.

An Adventure Into the Mountains

Red Rocks, CO

Red Rocks, CO

April has been an interesting month. I didn’t get into Vanderbilt and Brown, both of which I was surprisingly okay with. All throughout my college search and application process, both my parents and my prayer has been that God would guide me to where He wanted me. Though it stung a little to get those first rejection letters, I decided to not look at them as rejection letters, but as God closing doors, so He can lead me to the right ones. In the end of April, my mom, sister and I took a girls trip to tour my final two schools: Lewis and Clark College and University of Puget Sound. We saw the schools, explored some state parks, and took in the sights of Washington and Oregon.

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I got to meet up with the track coach at Puget Sound to talk about the possibilities of running on his track team. I went into the meeting expecting to be rejected politely because I am a JV level athlete. Not exactly the kind of caliber that I assumed all college coaches would be looking for. I was taken aback when he said that he doesn’t look at times for incoming freshman, all he requires is a good attitude and a willingness to put the effort into getting better. He never asked for my marks and PRs. And the team was so welcoming and just plain awesome.

By the end of the trip, I had narrowed my choices down to Denver and Puget Sound. When I got home, I found out that I was wait listed for the leadership program at Denver and there was a technical difficulty with my application for the Honors program at Denver as well, so I wouldn’t know until after Commitment Day (May 1st) if I would be able to participate in those programs.

After some more research, prayer, deliberation, and lengthy conversations I decided last night on University of Puget Sound. The funny thing about it is that, I applied to UPS last-minute because I thought the campus was pretty, had heard great things about it at a college fair for it and its sister schools, and they offered me a free application. When I applied, I had no intention of actually attending. I guess the pounds of mail, billions of emails, and the numerous phone calls each year are successful; they helped put Puget Sound on the radar for me, and I couldn’t be happier about my decision.

Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” There is never a time that I am not floored by the evidence of God’s creation in nature, whether it be when I am looking at Grand Prismatic Springs in Yellowstone, or a tiny protein with a very specific job in the body, essential for survival. When one looks at the specificity of everything in nature, it is very hard(impossible for me) to believe that creation happened randomly. If you can’t tell, I am a total science nerd. I am unashamedly and completely fascinated by microscopic organelles in cells, the stars in the sky, and the entire universe.

That being said, I watched this video at a Campus Crusades for Christ meeting on Thursday and had to share and write about it. I loved it for so many reasons. The first being that it wove science and faith together seamlessly with great analogies. Second, it realigned my view of myself and the world as a whole. I was reminded of just how significantly insignificant I truly am and that I am a child of a great big God; the God who created the universe, who breathed the stars into existence.

“Though we are but a vapor, you and me, and tiny and frail, we are marked by Majesty, and we have been created in the very image of the God who breathes out the stars and put the universe into place, you and I are fashioned and formed and ordained by the God of all creation. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Louie Giglio repeatedly compares the Earth to a golf ball, with every person being but a speck on that tiny golf ball. But because we are set apart by God, He has given us tools and a task to accomplish. It makes me so humble to think that, I, just a tiny speck on the golf ball of the Earth, have been thought into creation, with a purpose, by a God who made the entire universe in its vastness.

His message is long, but bear with me, it is way worth it. Feel free to comment with your thoughts or send me a message, I would love to know what you think. Without further ado, I give you Louie Giglio.